PublishPress Authors 3 is Live!
Say hello to “PublishPress Authors“, the newest plugin in the PublishPress family.
By default, WordPress only allows you to add one author to each post.
Multiple Authors is a plugin that allows you to add as many authors as you want. This is really useful for teams who work together on content.
Introducing PublishPress Authors 3
PublishPress Authors was built on top of two older plugins, Co-Authors Plus and Bylines.
Originally, PublishPress Authors was only available as an add-on for PublishPress. However, the add-on proved really popular and people constantly asked us to release it as a standalone plugin.
So now with version 3, PublishPress Authors is an independent plugin, vastly improved and fully ready for WordPress in 2019
Here's a recap of what's new in PublishPress Authors 3 …
Improvement #1. PublishPress Authors is a standalone plugin
PublishPress Authors was launched as an add-on for the main PublishPress plugin. However, many people asked us to release it as a standalone plugin. So now PublishPress Authors is an independent plugin with its own menu links in the WordPress admin area:
Improvement #2. PublishPress Authors has custom fields
PublishPress Authors allows you to enter basic user details for each author (First Name, Last Name, Avatar, Email, Website, Bio).
You can now also add your own fields to author profiles. The current field options are Text, Multiline Text, WYSIWYG Editor, Link and Email, but we're open to adding more, based on your feedback.
Improvement #3. PublishPress Authors has customizable layouts
All of the profile layouts in PublishPress Authors now have customizable layouts. The goal is to allow you to easily create author profiles that match your site.
Each layout is editable using Twig. For example, in one of the images above, we saw a field with the slug personal_website. You can add that field to your layouts using this syntax:
{{ author.personal_website }}
Improvement #4. PublishPress Authors has a cleaner interface
Version 3.0 also contains a lot of little improvements to improve your PublishPress Authors experience.
One change is that we've removed the default “Author” box from the “Quick Edit” area of WordPress. This box is shown below, but you won't see it with PublishPress Authors installed.
We've also removed the “Author” dropdown from inside Gutenberg. Again, the dropdown is shown below, but you won't see it with PublishPress Authors installed.
These two changes mean that PublishPress Authors is easier to use, because the only place to add and remove authors is this metabox:
How to upgrade to PublishPress Authors 3
If you already use PublishPress Authors, you should see this update inside WordPress, as in the image below:
We've spent a lot of time making sure that we maintain backwards compatibility. However, as with any site update, it's always worth taking a site backup first. In particular, be careful if you'd made any significant changes to author layouts in your theme or PublishPress Authors itself. We're here to help if you need us.
What's next?
PublishPress Authors 3 is another step toward completing our PublishPress roadmap. We plan on having six plugins. Each plugin will have a Free and Pro version. Every Free version will be on WordPress.org and every Pro version will be behind the paywall for PublishPress members. This image below shows the product line-up we hope to complete by the end of 2019:
Later this week, we plan to release Revisionary Pro. After that, to reach our 2019 target we’ll need five more releases:
- PublishPress Pro (This integrates the existing add-ons such as Slack and Reminders.)
- Capability Manager Enhanced Pro
- Multiple Authors Free
- Checklist Free (This will be a standalone release of the current Checklist add-on.)
- Checklist Pro